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Technology is changing the way we view and interact with the world around us every day. Startups are disrupting every industry imaginable with smart entrepreneurs constantly coming up with new ideas to make the world a better place.

The challenge for many startup founders is raising funds for their ideas. Venture and angel capital companies are the usual go-to source for funding. However, these venture companies are very selective of companies they work with. They only fund companies and ideas with traction.

So, how do you gain traction for your startup idea without spending thousands of dollars and several months locked away in your garage building out your product? The answer is an MVP.

What is an MVP?

According to Eric Ries, “the minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.”

Below is a video of Eric Reis himself discussing the concept of building an MVP:

In a nutshell, building an MVP means you create the most basic version of your startup idea as quickly as possible. This way, you can test your assumptions and optimize your idea for product/market fit based on feedback from your early adopters.

Challenges When Developing an MVP

Entrepreneurs face several challenges when building an MVP for their startup idea. It is important to discuss these challenges so that you can learn to avoid them when you decide to build yours. Listed below are three of the most common challenges startup founders face when creating their MVP.

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Challenge #1: Ignorance of the difference between MVP, proof of concept, and prototype

While all three of these strategies are used to validate ideas, each of them serves a slightly different purpose.

Proof of concept is a way to check if your startup idea can be applied to real-world scenarios before spending time or money to build it out. Meanwhile, a prototype is a working simulation of your product – based on your proof of concept mockups – that is usually discarded after testing.

The most significant difference between an MVP and a prototype is that the MVP is the first version of your actual product idea (albeit with limited features), while a prototype is just the first draft of your proof of concept, and is usually discarded after testing.

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Challenge #2: Failure to identify the right audience for the MVP

Another challenge many startups come up against is product/market fit. Just because an idea seems cool in theory does not mean it will be successful in practice. This is something that Shaked and Gilad discovered when they launched theirrestaurant research app, Botnim.

Aimed at health-conscious, time-strapped consumers, Botnim was designed to help people find restaurants based on the nutritional value of each dish. Their initial market research involved speaking to restaurant owners and diners and asking their opinion on the app. However, this was not sufficient: they said that people who ate at restaurants generally aren’t overly bothered about they eat, and the people that tend not to eat out as often. They failed to recognize and drill down into their target audience, resulting in an MVP that fell flat.

If you want users for your MVP, you need to constantly test your target audiences. You need to research your audience’s preference when it comes to product development.

Chances are the first set of people you launch your MVP to will not be responsive to your ideas. The trick is to look for passionate people within that niche. Then show them your product and use their feedback to make the product better.

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Challenge #3: Choosing an incompatible project management methodology

Another challenge many startups face due to cost and skill set is collaborating with others on building the MVP. For tech startups who require software development as part of their MVP, the two most popular project management methodologies are Waterfall and Agile.

The Waterfall management model consists of a strictly defined sequence of software development. These developmental phases include planning, design, implementation, testing, production, and support. It is impossible to proceed to the next phase without fully completing the previous ones.

The Agile model is the opposite of Waterfall. As the name implies, this model thrives on agility. This means changes can be made instantly based on feedback. Constant iterations will speed up product development.

Problems can arise if the development is outsourced on platforms like Upwork orClutch. Not because the quality is bad, but because you need your development team to constantly be available for iterations.

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Benefits of developing an MVP

Startups can expect several benefits when they build an MVP to test their product idea. Outlined below are three top benefits of developing an MVP for your startup idea.

Benefit #2: An MVP saves you time and money

The time and money you would have otherwise spent on product development and marketing can be saved and reinvested into customer development. This ensures you come out with a better product, thus increasing your chances of success.

Ana Santos learned this the hard way when she launched Onepagetrip. Designed to help travelers plan and share travel itineraries, the app had a lot of time and energy poured into it. Unfortunately, that time and energy went into something that hadn’t started as an MVP. It hadn’t been market-tested and, as a result, lost her time and money.

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Benefit #3: Opportunity to acquire “early adopter” customers

For your MVP to pick up steam, you will need to target the right people. As the image below illustrates, theearly adopters (or influencers) are the ones who you should target with your MVP. These people will most likely be passionate about your product and be more likely to provide feedback and promote to others within the niche.

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The Fake Door MVP

A fake door MVP is used to answer the question if people are willing to buy the product by bringing traffic to a landing page that includes the features and benefits of the product and a see if a purchase was made.

This is mainly down by what is known as crowdfunding platform such as Kickstarter, Gofundme, Indiegogo etc.

When doing so you want to add a button to see if people want particular features that you offer. The main piece of information that helps you know if people want your product is the ratio of people who showed interest vs the number of people who were exposed to it. Though validation and invalidation can happen based on how the information is perceived and what the company does next based on that information.

Though in the end with the fake door MVP would be good to see how potential customers perceive your product, evaluating small features you may want to include, and keeping you from developing features or products your consumer wants without spending too much money.

Why you Need an MVP? Case Studies

You’ve seen the benefits of MVPs, but maybe you’re not convinced. You’re confident in your idea and you just know that it’s going to be popular. But there are plenty of real-life examples startups who eschewed MVPs, only to see their business crash and burn.

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Gymlisted

The idea was simple: create an online private gym locator and membership management hub. Tom’s impetus from the idea came from his cousin, a gym owner who said that he would definitely try such an idea.

This spurred Tom onto investing time and money in the idea. Unfortunately, a relative’s passing interest will never make up for a strong MVP, and Tom’s idea fell flat.

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AskTina

We can also learn from Tom Hunt’s AskTina, a live video app for blogs. While Tom did create an MVP, he did not put enough work into the market research stage. He conducted interviews with customers to identify their needs, problems, and desires, but simply not enough of them.

As a result, they spent time and money creating a product that their customers didn’t want. It’s an example of how simply creating an MVP isn’t enough — it needs to be well-researched and watertight.‍

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Airbnb

Another example are Airbnb founders, Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia.

Brian and Joe’s idea was one that decentralized the hospitality industry to its very core. Allowing a homeowner to make an extra revenue stream by renting out a room in their apartment/ house or having their entire place rented out.

The idea was built when Brian and Joe could not afford to pay their rent. Out of desperation, they realized a design conference was happening in their city of San Francisco and decided to rent a room in their apartment for cheap to attendees of the event coming in that couldn’t find a hotel. Brian and Joe took pictures of their apartment and put it up on a website and soon after they had three customers.

They used the concierge MVP or minimum viable experience to gain information that concluded their idea was good enough from the three attendees who had booked their apartment. So with their initial assumptions verified they made air bed and breakfast that later came to be Airbnb.

If you are interested to learn more about Airbnb's story, you should definitely check out this book!

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Uber

Back in 2010 Uber started as a simplified interface only used by the founders Travis Kalanick, Garrett Camp, and their friends. Their MVP was simply to connect IPhone users in San Francisco with vehicle services that were as cheap as possible, faster to acquire, while knowing the cost before entering the vehicle.

The service was first tested in new york using only three cars but the official launch was in San Francisco later that year. Uber used the rate and comment feature that can be accessed through the IPhone store to gather information from customers on how they could make it better.

The founders found true successes once they were able to move to other large cities like New York, Berlin, and Paris even with the opposition they faced from members of the taxis industry and their supporters.

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How to Create your MVP

By now, you should be aware of the challenges, benefits, and pitfalls of building an MVP. With all this in mind, let’s run through how you should create yours.

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Identify what your problem is

Before creating your MVP, you need to take a long, hard look at your business premise. Hone in on what your product actually does — what problem does it solve? This is simple but it will inform every decision you make going forward.

This will include identifying your target audience. Who are they and what’s their motivation for choosing your product? The social automation tool Buffer nailed this when it created its MVP, a basic landing page that explained what Buffer did.

Potential customers were given the option to sign up for updates, giving Buffer the chance to conduct some valuable audience research. Potential customers revealed their motivations for subscribing and what they wanted to see from the final product. This insight helped turn Buffer into the successful product it is today.

Another part of this will involve checking out your competition. Seeing what they do better (and worse) will help you develop your own USP.

Outline your user flow

Your user flow is the route that your customer will take with your business. For example, Uber’s user flow is to let customers hire cars to take them places. It sounds very paint-by-numbers, but it’s an important aspect of building your MVP.

Break it down into stages to outline how your customers reach your intended goal. Take, for example, the music streaming service Spotify. Their customers first need to find their desired band or artist. They then need to play it, curate it, discover new music, and so on. Identifying even the most obvious steps helped Spotify create an end product that delivers an impeccable user experience.

When you outline your user flow, go granular. Fleshing out your user flow at this stage will help you identify areas for improvement further down the line.

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Break it down to its core features

You’ve got your USP and the problem it solves. Now you need to break down the features that it comprises.

Delineate between the ones that are nice to have and those that are absolutely essential. The former can be looked into at a later date, but for now, of course, you’re striving for the minimum viable product.

Once you’ve identified the essential features your product requires, prioritize them. Your key feature is the one that will be of most use or interest to your customer, and one that solves the problem you established earlier.

At this stage, you’ll need to get ruthless. Be honest with yourself. Your fondness for a particular feature might blind you to its necessity. Getting a second pair of eyes can help you determine whether it’s an absolute priority or not.

You might find allocating each feature to the stages of your user flow a useful method at this stage. For example, Spotify’s playlist creation feature is part of its music curation stage, and is a crucial aspect of its product. A free organizational tool like Mindmup or Trello can help you visualize this.

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Next Steps After Developing an MPV

Once you build out your MVP, the next step is to test it for functionality and acceptance by driving traffic to it. The goal is to successfully transition from your MVP to a Minimum Marketable Product (MMP) as quickly as possible.

When I launched this website, I wanted to validate fast if the initial idea I had of interviewing failed startup founders interested entrepreneurs. So I build the site and launch it in only 3 weeks (working on it during my free times). But I wouldn't have been able to validate anything if I would't have brought traffic to the site. What I did was to submit the website to Product Hunt. It ended up in position #1 and brought a lot of traffic to the site. This way, I understood that people wanted me to continue with the site.

Listed below are 10 simple ways you can quickly test your product ideas without spending a ton of money while you can still get actionable feedback from your early adopters.

Create a landing page and drive traffic to it. This is a great option if you have some money handy that you want to use in testing the validity of the MVP. Facebook and Twitter ads are great examples. More on how to get traffic below!

Using facebook ads you can use an eye catching ad to invest as much as you can into reaching as many people as possible. The more you spend, the more people you will reach. For every $65 you invest in ads, you will receive 100 clicks (in general!).

Recording a video demonstrating the basics of your MVP. You will learn more about the perceived value of your idea.

Ask for feedback from people who have seen your MVP. Try as much as possible todrive traffic to your product’s landing page. Traffic can either be paid (as discussed above) or organic. Organic traffic comes from blog posts (SEO), social media, and from industry-specific websites (Product Hunt, Hacker News, etc).

Starting a blog will give potential customers a chance to see what happens behind the scenes and get to know some of the people working on the product. This return will cause you to gain a loyal following who are not only interested in what you do but your product as well.

Releasing a form or survey to the public will tell them a little bit about your product and give them a chance to sign up to the idea. This will give you a clear idea about how many people are going to like this idea, and more importantly, spend money on your product.

Run split tests on everything. Test your audience, test your marketing materials, and test your explainer videos. Do whatever it takes to ensure the results you are getting are accurate.

Test validity of your ideas by running a crowdfunding campaign. Platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo are perfect examples. Think of something cool you can offer to anyone who contributes to your product’s MVP.

Pre-order pages are a great way to see if people will actually pay for your startup idea. You can set this up by creating a landing page with an explainer video talking about the product and its benefits and a buy button. Next, you send paid traffic to your pre-order page to get instant feedback from website visitors.

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How to Get Qualified Traffic for your MVP

If your MVP isn’t getting seen and by customers, then it won’t deliver results. It’s all very well creating an MVP with great features, but unless people are engaging with it, you won’t make the right decisions at the next stage of the process.

Start with your potential customers. Identify where they are active most and create an ad strategy for those platforms. While social media is used by virtually everyone, some networks play host to different demographics. For example, if your target market is females aged 20-30, then a Pinterest ad campaign would best serve you.

It’s also worth gamifying your target market research in order to encourage more customers to engage. Offer vouchers or discounts in return for detailed feedback, with better feedback receiving greater rewards.

Optimize your landing page to find potential customers through search. This will mean playing the long game as it can take months for search engine crawlers to rank your site. But combined with other traffic streams, this will give you the breathing space you need to thoroughly research your target market.

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Books and Courses on MVP’s

Do you want to keep reading or take a course about MVP. Here are the main 5 resources:

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is MVP important?

It is important if you want to launch a product quickly without spending too much money while gaining feedback before the final product is sent out to the public.

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What is a MVP?

Techniques used by startups and developers in which a new product is launched with just enough features that are core to the product.

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How do you create an MVP?

Identify the problem you are trying to fix.

Create a prototype that is the truest version of the product or service.

Showcase the product or service features.

Find and test your audience.

Get validation of your idea from the market your are in.

Have an integration plan for the information you gathered from your first version of your product and use it to make the next iteration of product or service better.

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What’s after an MVP?

After developing your MVP the next step is to test it for functionality and acceptance by driving traffic to it. The goal is to successfully transition from your MVP to a Minimum Marketable Product as quickly as possible.

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What is the key component of an MVP?

The key component of an MVP is getting traffic to your product to understand if the pure version is liked and to adjust for the features that are not liked. Without that you cannot continue in the process of developing an MVP.

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Conclusion

Your startup idea could be the next Facebook… or it might be the next New Coke. The best solution is to keep testing your ideas until you see the one that sticks.

An MVP is the most widely accepted option when it comes to testing a product idea as quickly as possible. Once you create your MVP, driving traffic to it and asking for feedback is the next logical step.

Based on the feedback you receive, you can make your product even better. Once you are able to prove to early adopters and influencers that your product really packs a mean punch, they will help you evangelize and acquire more users.

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Victoria Greene is a branding consultant and freelance writer. Want the latest news from the world of ecommerce, marketing, and design? Check out her blog, Victoria Ecommerce for all the current developments. Victoria has a deep passion for helping SMEs get the best return on their online biz.

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